KIRKUS REVIEW

A teenager at an East Texas summer
camp in 1974 gets involved in a racial dispute in McCandless’ (Sour Lake,2011) second novel.

The peace-and-love ’60s has devolved
into the drug-addled ’70s, and 14-year-old high school student Tommy Lothrup is
trying to navigate his way through a confused world. When his parents go off on
a summer business trip, he’s sent to Camp Alexandra, known as “Alex,” a seedy
summer camp that divides campers into two competing Native American tribes.
Although many consider him a longhaired, pot-smoking hippie, Tommy quickly
gains a reputation as a cerebral sort and wins friends. He meets a young African-American
girl named Alyssha, who works in Alex’s kitchen, and the two become friends,
although Tommy hopes that it’s more than just platonic. Unfortunately, racial
prejudice is alive and well in East Texas and Tommy finds himself having to try
to defuse a bad situation before something terrible happens. McCandless has
crafted a multilayered novel. On the one hand, it may bring back memories of
high school and holding onto one’s youth while moving relentlessly toward
adulthood. On another level, the book is a searing examination of the insidious
ways that racial hatred destroys people and relationships. The book also offers
a nostalgic trip for anyone who ever attended summer camp and provides a clear snapshot
of 1974. Readers who lived then will recognize such references as Boone’s Farm
strawberry wine and the popular book Chariots of the Gods?.McCandless also provides
engaging descriptions—“The stars skipped around me like living things”—and
fills the book with humor: “Jack burped. I called, and raised.” Although the
story takes place more than 40 years ago, it’s one that still has relevance in
America today.

An evocative, nostalgic coming-of-age
tale and examination of bigotry.

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